For those who invited ~100 guests or less

Our total of people we know are coming and wouldnt miss it is at 35 right now, kids included. That includes our 10-person wedding party and preacher, though, so sitting in the audience we only have 24

We both have small families. So, it works out good.

His family is small, mine is pretty big. We planned a dw because his parents started rolling out a huge almost 200 people guest list. So we went with the dw and kept it to the 30 most important.

Proably could have come up with a 200 person list, but got it down to about 85. Have to see howe many actually show.

Both of our families are HUGE and I am not exagerating. My dad has 12, yes 12 siblings and my mom has 6, luckily some of my mom's family lives out of the country. And FH's family is also very large. But we decided that only our aunts and uncles and their spouse would be invited, if we started to add cousins and cousin's children we would have like 1,000 people there. My dad's oldest sister has 10 children and six of them have children, it was just going to be too much and seem more like a family reunion than an intimate wedding. I am inviting all family and only 3 friends :-( and FH is only inviting one uncle and his wife the rest will be his friends. He said that he is not about to spend $140 on a meal for a family member he has only seen once. Funny and true.

He's from a small family - my family is HUGE but not terribly close (we're talking 5 brothers and sisters, 6 Uncles, countless cousins!) so pretty much my family that is invited is just my siblings and their kids, my parents and then our friends. He's inviting his family too of course but he only has 1 uncle and 1 aunt. so it was easy to knock it down to about 75 people.

His dad has 12 brothers/sisters, my dad has 4, my mom has 2, his mom has 2

We invited all our aunts and uncles, my grandma's (he has none),

his mom/dad, brother/SIL, sister/BIL, other sis/BIL and our 2 neices and nephews.

my mom/dad, brother/SIL, sister/bf

We then invited 20 of our friends (the 20 includes the dates of the ones we allowed dates) Luckily most of our friends are shared, and about half of their SO's either havn't been around long or don't hang out with us when their bf/gf do. It ended up 2 of my friends/their dates that my husband isn't as close with(long term friends) and one of his/+date

and then invited 3 of his many many cousins/their dates, and allowed our parents to bring one couple.

NO kids.

We also planned the wedding in his home town.

total invited 100 total that came 85 (inc bp)

We only have 28 people we are inviting to actually cermony and the included us.

We have medium to large families but they are ALL out of state so we cut a few friends of the family because we knew they wouldn't travel. Others we are sending an invitation just to be polite even though we know they won't come. We also don't have a lot of friends. Our guest list is looking like 80-90 guests actually showing up. I'm not sure how many total guests are actually invited. We had family members who we really wanted to be there cancel on us so we are actually letting a few more "dates" come then we planned.

After booking my venue I decided how many people I wanted to comfortable put in there. It said I could host up to 250 but there was NO WAY that would be for a dinner! Then we compiled a list of family that HAD to be invited. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and 1st cousins and grandparents, and added from there friends. We both have larger families, so we sacrificed friends. In the end Of our 103 guests, I think only 10 are friends, the rest are all close family. Some of those friends are also the bridal party.

We're shooting for about 70. I'm inviting my (relatively) small family on both sides (34 people total). He's inviting his mom's side (5 people) but not his dad's side, since that would add 50 people (and they'd ALL go), many of whom he doesn't see that much. We want to keep it small, so that was our compromise, since cutting my dad's side out would make my side very small (I wouldn't be able to invite my mom's side only without offending everyone) and I care more about inviting my cousins than he does about inviting his.

In any case, after a lot of discussion and compromising, I'm hopeful we'll be able to keep it to 70. That'll include about 10 close friends between us.

ALSO, if you THINK someone won't show up, don't bet on it! You may be surprised at how many people you don't think will even attempt to make it that do try to show up. So pretend that everyone you invite will show, or you may end up in a bind like some other brides have: Not enough money to pay for them all and just as bad, not enough SPACE for them all!

Fh has 3 brothers so all of their SO's and on his mom and dads side he has a total of 12 aunts and uncles and then the cousins that he pretty grew up with most of. So as we go along we are only inviting the aunts, uncles and cousins that we keep in touch with or that i've met more than once and know anything at all about us.

Our venue requires a min of 100 ppl even though i originally wanted 80 so i was able to invite most of my 1st cousins that live locally BUT no children. Otherwise that would get to like 200 easilly.

I actually have an incredibly huge family. Very big. But I didn't want 400 people there or have to deal with any and all drama that was certain to happen. So I'm only inviting approx. 50 people. I'm inviting my friends and their families, my parents and my brother. To narrow down the list, I only invited the aunts/uncles/cousins/etc that lives in my state. We moved away from 'the herd' several years ago, so they all would of had to fly up here anyway. Then we invited our grandparents and godparents (the only out of staters). And that is it. There are some more I was contemplating to invite, but if I invited them I would of had to invite so-and-so and then I would of had to invite so-and-so etc etc.